Warsaw XC: Tigers Scratching Heads After State Performance
By TIM CREASON
TERRE HAUTE – High expectations sometimes result in big disappointments. How else to explain some of the reactions from Warsaw High School’s cross country team following the IHSAA girls state finals Saturday at Terre Haute.
The Lady Tigers finished 13th overall. That ties the third-best finish ever recorded by a Warsaw girls team at the state meet. Hard to argue with that.
Except: they wanted so much more.
“I guess ‘disappointing’ would be the key word,” said girls coach Matt Campbell after his Tigers wrapped up their season at the Wabash Valley Sports Center. “When I look at the results, I can see that it was wide open for us. I’m thinking that if everybody ran well, we could have been seventh or eighth.”
Mia Beckham’s 26th place individual finish led Warsaw through a tough 5,000-meter race that may be best remembered for temperatures in the 80’s and gusting winds. A lot of runners suffered, with several falling on the homestretch and crawling to the finish line.
DeKalb’s Tyler Schwartz was a surprise individual winner, as defending champ Sarah Leinheiser of Carmel dropped out of contention about halfway through the race and faded back to 21st place.
Schwartz, a junior, ended up in a battle with Carroll-Fort Wayne’s Abi Green, a sophomore, over the second half of the race. The two face each other several times each season, so both knew what to expect.
Schwartz surged ahead with about 500 meters to go and held on for victory in 18 minutes, 8.6 seconds. Green was second in 18:17.4.
Even without Leinheiser up front, Carmel easily won its seventh consecutive girls state title, placing five runners among the top 25 and scoring 44 points.
Carroll-Fort Wayne was second at 113, followed by Homestead (157). Penn finished ninth. Northridge was 16th.
Warsaw, ranked much of the season among the state’s top 10, was hoping to finish in that spot as well. The best finish by any Warsaw girls team was 11th in 2011.
But a 330-point total left the Tigers back in 13th, less than 50 points away from eighth place.
Campbell pointed to a gap of one minute and 40 seconds between the team’s first and fifth scoring runners. That hasn’t been the case in recent weeks, as the Tigers usually run in a much tighter pack.
Beckham clocked 19:07.9, missing automatic All-State recognition by one place and 1.3 seconds. Manchester’s Rae Bedke garnered that honor, placing 25th overall with a time of 19:06.6.
Allison Miller and Anna Craig, both seniors, came home in 69th place and 96th place, respectively.
“I felt pretty strong at the start, but it got harder,” said Miller, who got involved in some serious elbow throwing as the field bunched up. “People say cross country isn’t a physical sport, but let me tell you, it’s pretty physical.”
She finished in 19:51.9. Craig clocked 20:16.0.
Angie Sanchez-Vijil finished 136th, while Charlene Orr – who fell during the race – reached the finish line in 20:47.5, claiming 140th, to wrap up Warsaw’s scoring.
“Our 2-3-4 runners should have been closer together,” said Campbell. “Our pack wasn’t there. If all the girls had come in together, we would have made that top 10.”
Over in the boys race, meanwhile, Warsaw sophomore Zeb Hernandez pushed himself to a 24th place finish, clocking 16:19.0.
While that wasn’t enough to get him up on the awards podium – he missed an IHSAA medal by less than five seconds – Hernandez still received automatic All-State recognition from the coaches association.
Oldenburg Academy’s Curtis Eckstein took the lead pack out at a suicidal pace, and eventually pulled away to win the individual championship in 15:13.3, over 27 seconds ahead of runnerup Gabe Fendel from Hamilton Southeastern.
Hernandez stayed just behind the lead pack for much of the race, not wanting to get sucked into the early chase.
Carroll-Fort Wayne upset defending champ Carmel for the boys team title, 71-117. Carroll placed six runners among the top 50, no mean feat at a state meet.
IHSAA STATE CROSS COUNTRY FINALS
At Terre Haute
BOYS
TEAM SCORES: Carroll (Fort Wayne) 71, Carmel 117, Lowell 166, Fishers 169, Fort Wayne Concordia 173, Avon 224, West Lafayette 229, Indianapolis Brebeuf 249, Hamilton Southeastern 284, Tell City 300, Penn 306, Terre Haute South 308, Columbus North 322, Westview 326, Fort Wayne Northrop 372, Crown Point 376, Portage 407, Chesterton 456, Zionsville 459, Valparaiso 493, Bloomington North 519, Jennings County 523, Pendleton Heights 612, Barr-Reeve 626.
TOP 25 FINISHERS: 1, Curtis Eckstein (Oldenburg Academy) 15:13.3. 2, Gabe Fendel (Hamilton Southeastern) 15:40.7. 3, Skylar Stidam (Christian Academy of Indiana) 15:51.6. 4, Mitchell Rans (Caston) 15:57.2. 5, Alec Fleming (Lowell) 15:57.8. 6, Bailey McIntire (South Adams) 15:59.0. 7, Noah Steffen (FW Concordia) 15:59.1. 8, Colin Murphy (Carmel) 16:00.8. 9, Rich Stoltzfus (Westview) 16:04.1. 10, Cole Powers (Carroll-FW) 16:04.6. 11, Cole Hocker (Indianapolis Cathedral) 16:05.1. 12, Matt Schadler (Evansville Reitz) 16:05.8. 13, Aaron Bennett (Westfield) 16:06.3. 14, Hunter Boyer (Lowell) 16:07.0. 15, Brennan Butche (Mississinewa) 16:10.6. 16, Matt Yoder (Westview) 16:11.8. 17, Carter Meyer (Carroll-FW) 16:12.4. 18, Austin Haskett (Edgewood) 16:13.6. 19, Josh Roth (Fishers) 16:14.0. 20, Evan Sorensen (Evansville Central) 16:14.2. 21, Isaiah Robyne (West Lafayette) 16:16.5. 22, Sam Kuhn (Fishers) 16:17.2. 23, Ian Hunter (Indianapolis North Central) 16:18.7. 24, Zeb Hernandez (Warsaw) 16:19.0. 25, Brady Harless (Indianapolis Brebeuf) 16:19.4.
MENTAL ATTITUDE AWARD: Curtis Eckstein (Oldenburg Academy)
GIRLS
TEAM SCORES: Carmel 44, Carroll (Fort Wayne) 113, Homestead 157, Zionsville 166, Valparaiso 269, Bloomington North 276, Fishers 282, Penn 298, Westfield 299, Floyd Central 312, Columbus North 313, Warsaw 330, Guerin Catholic 370, Pendleton Heights 393, Northridge 395, Bloomington South 398, East Noble 399, Lowell 403, West Lafayette 407, Lake Central 449, La Porte 450, Seymour 495, Evansville Reitz 645.
TOP 25 FINISHERS: 1, Tyler Schwartz (DeKalb) 18:08.6. 2, Abigail Green (Carroll-FW) 18:17.4. 3, Maddie Dalton (Carmel) 18:27.0. 4, Christina Geisler (Carmel) 18:28.3. 5, Sarah Hunsley (Lake Central) 18:33.5. 6, Phoebe Bates (Carmel) 18:37.2. 7, Meagan Hathaway (Carroll-FW) 18:38.9. 8, Emma Wilson (Greencastle) 18:40.3. 9, Madison Distelrath (Homestead) 18:40.5. 10, Katherine Walther (Homestead) 18:43.0. 11, Shelby Riehle (La Porte) 18:43.6. 12, Kayla McCulloch (East Noble) 18:47.0. 13, Sophia Rigg (Zionsville) 18:48.3. 14, Abi Little (Noblesville) 18:52.3. 15, Katelyn Wasson (Zionsville) 18:53.3. 16, Lauren Frank (Penn) 18:53.8. 17, Jordyn Boyer (Lowell) 18:54.8. 18, Sabrina Bippus (Hamilton SE) 18:56.8. 19, Rachel Anderson (Carmel) 18:57.1. 20, Faith Baer (Pendleton Heights) 19:00.7. 21, Sarah Leinheiser (Carmel) 19:02.7. 22, Grace Williams (Bloomington North) 19:05.3. 23, Maddie Russin (Crown Point) 19:05.9. 24, Logan Ferngren (Valparaiso) 19:06.1. 25, Rae Bedke (Manchester) 19:06.6.
WARSAW: 26, Mia Beckham 19:07.9 … 69, Allison Miller 19:51.9 … 96, Anna Craig 20:16.0 … 136, Angie Sanchez-Vijil 20:44.7 … 140, Charlene Orr 20:47.5 … 161, Remi Beckham 21:14.7 … 164, Megan Metzger 21:20.3.
MENTAL ATTITUDE AWARD: Rachel Anderson (Carmel)